Police, public nab 'polite robber'
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Latest victim, others help lead police to suspect in bus after sixth holdup
4/16/2008 - 4/17/08
When the man flung open the door and walked into her bath and body products store late Wednesday morning, Cherilyn Swenson knew immediately he was the "polite robber."
"Nothing stood out (about him) except I own a bath and body store, and my customers are not usually single men," Swenson said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon.
As the man drew closer, Swenson, the owner of Spabox, 211 Galisteo St., noticed he was carrying a plastic bag containing a light-colored plaid shirt in one hand and a knife with a 4-to-6-inch blade in the other.
"He said, 'I'm sorry but I'm here to rob you,' " Swenson said. "Then I made some comment like, 'This is unbelievable' because I literally had just read about (a similar robbery Tuesday) in the paper. He said, 'Yeah, I need the money.' "
Police believe Wednesday's robbery is the sixth time the robber has hit a small business downtown since Jan. 29, and the seventh overall robbery attributed to the man. However, on Wednesday — just a day after the robber stole less than $200 from another downtown business — police and the public were ready for him.
Detectives and extra officers were already in the downtown area because a man fitting the robber's description robbed another downtown business Tuesday morning, said Deputy Police Chief Aric Wheeler. Police suspected, based on his previous behavior, the robber might strike again Wednesday, Wheeler said.
Detectives also thought the man might be using public transportation to make his getaways. Although officers have arrived within minutes to each of the seven robberies attributed to the polite robber, no one has reported seeing him running away, getting in to a nearby vehicle or escaping on a bicycle, Wheeler said. So when radio reports Wednesday indicated the robber ran toward the Sheridan Transit Center, officers immediately stopped all buses from leaving and searched them, he said.
That's when a detective discovered a sweaty, out-of-breath man named John Abraham sitting on one of the buses, Wheeler said. Abraham was taken into custody, and eyewitnesses to Wednesday's incident positively identified him as the Spabox robber, he said. In addition, the victim of another downtown robbery — this one at Cielo Tabletop, 316 Guadalupe St., on Feb. 10 — identified Abraham as the robber in that incident as well, he said.
"I was very relieved," Swenson said of Abraham's capture. "I was very angry when I read in the paper that someone was targeting women and small-business owners. Then when I was actually confronted face-to-face and lived through the experience, it fueled my adrenaline to do whatever I could to catch this guy."
When the man came around the counter, Swenson said, he held the knife so it was pointing at her neck, then told her again he "needed" the money. Swenson opened the cash register and handed him about $70. The man then said he wanted Swenson's purse, too. Because she'd read about the return of the polite robber in the newspaper that morning, She said she told him, she'd left her purse in her car.
"He said, 'You're lying' " Swenson said. "And I said, 'You've got the money. Just leave.' "
The man fled out the door and headed north on Galisteo Street. Swenson said she grabbed her cell phone and followed him. She said she saw him walking quickly and shouted to two men walking down Water Street that she'd been robbed.
Leonard Romero Jr., 28, a city Parking Division employee, said he was walking down Water Street toward the city parking garage at Water and Guadalupe streets when a woman nearly ran him down and told him about the robbery. "That's him," the woman told Romero, pointing toward a man wearing a brown shirt walking quickly toward San Francisco Street, he said.
"I started following him to see if he'd get into a car or something," Romero said.
At San Francisco Street, the man began jogging, then crossed the street and entered a building between the Original Trading Post, 201 W. San Francisco St., and Origins, 135 W. San Francisco St., he said. Romero continued to follow, though he cautiously approached a corner where the hallway turns sharply right because the woman had warned him the thief had a knife, Romero said. "I didn't want to get too close and get stabbed," he said.
When he looked around the corner, Romero said, he saw the man changing clothes or taking off clothes near a stairway. "We both just caught each other's eyes, and he was gone," Romero said. "That guy had some wheels."
Romero and another man with him continued to follow the hallway until it emerges onto Palace Avenue, just west of the Sheridan Transit Center. But there was no sign of the man, he said.
A police officer then walked up to Romero and the other man and asked them what they had seen, Romero said. As the three of them stood looking around, the officer glanced over at the buses waiting to leave the transit center and said he was going to check them, he said.
Not long after, officers converged on the area and pulled a man off a bus, Romero said. Officers walked the man over to Romero and asked him if this was the person Romero had chased. Romero said he thought it was probably the same man, though the man was wearing different clothing.
Romero, who never saw a knife, described the man as about 6-feet tall, with light brown hair and stubble on his face.
A man fitting that same general description entered The Monks' Corner, 235 Don Gaspar Ave., about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, brandished a knife and told a 53-year-old employee, "I'm sorry but I need all the cash from your drawer," police have said. The man, who the victim said was wearing a yellow plaid shirt and had short, reddish blond hair, made off with less than $200, police have said.
Wheeler said police on Wednesday found the roughly $70 stolen from Spabox on Abraham, "minus the $1 for bus fare." And though officers spent most of the afternoon searching for the knife, they never found it, he said.
In addition to the Cielo Tabletop robbery, police believe the robber also used a knife to rob women working alone at One Hour Martinizing, 2810 Rodeo Road, on Feb. 10; Big Star Books, 329 Garfield St., on Feb. 9; Toyopolis, 66 W. Marcy St., on Feb. 4 and Chimera Boutique, 573 Old Santa Fe Trail on Jan. 29.
Police had been calling the robber polite because he was cordial and often apologized to his victims.
Wheeler said Abraham doesn't have much of a criminal history, though police were looking into whether Abraham might have been stealing checks from his mother in Santa Fe and cashing them between the last robbery attributed to the robber Feb. 12 and Tuesday's robbery. Abraham was charged with shoplifting from Mervyn's at Coronado Mall in Albuquerque in March 2005, according to online Metropolitan Court records.
He is charged with armed robbery and tampering with evidence and will likely be charged with the Cielo Tabletop robbery today, Wheeler said.
Police showed photo lineups Wednesday to other victims , but no one else positively identified him, Wheeler said. Detectives also searched Abraham's residence in the 2200 block of Carmello Way on Wednesday and found evidence that might tie him to the other incidents, he said.
Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.